Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: AI will mean fewer jobs and we already cut 27,000 people from Amazon’s workforce

Jassy’s remarks, which echo a memo he sent to Amazon’s 1.5 million employees last week, underscore both the disruptive and transformative potential of generative AI across the company’s operations.

Jassy told Cramer that, as with every major technological shift, “there will be fewer people doing some of the jobs that the technology actually starts to automate.” He emphasized that AI is already freeing Amazon employees from rote work, making jobs “more interesting,” and enabling staff to focus on innovation and higher-value tasks. 

For example, AI agents now handle coding, analytics, and research at Amazon, he said.

However, Jassy was candid about the impact on headcount. He acknowledged that the adoption of generative AI will mean “fewer people” are needed for certain roles. In a recent internal memo, Jassy wrote, “We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs. It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.” 

Amazon has already been through significant layoffs, cutting more than 27,000 jobs over the past few years. Jassy positioned the ongoing transformation as an opportunity for those willing to adapt, urging employees to “be curious about AI, educate yourself, attend workshops and take trainings,” and to experiment with AI tools to “get more done with scrappier teams.”

Jassy also pointed out that AI will create new jobs in areas such as robotics, AI development, and other fields requiring human creativity and complex decision-making.

“I think that A.I. and generative A.I. specifically is the most transformative technology of our lifetime, which is saying a lot, given that we have had the Internet,” he told CNBC.

Disclaimer: For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.